Magnets' Efficacy As Desegregation Tool Questioned

Findings from a federally funded study, which are being withheld
from release by Education Department officials, cast doubt on the
efficacy of magnet schools for desegregating school districts.

The study, which one of the researchers provided to Education Week,
also indicates that some grants under the federal magnet-schools
program are going to districts that have no realistic chance of
furthering the program's primary goal of promoting racial
desegregation.

In an examination of desegregation plans around the country, two of
the study's authors--David J. Armor, a senior fellow at the Institute
of Public Policy at George Mason University in Virginia, and Christine
H. Rossell, a professor of political science at Boston University--were
unable to find conclusive evidence that magnet schools significantly
bolster districtwide efforts to reduce racial isolation, improve racial
balance, or stem "white flight.''

While some individual districts have achieved significant levels of
integration through the use of magnet schools, the researchers found
that, in the aggregate, desegregation plans with magnet programs
appeared to accomplish little more desegregation than comparable plans
without magnets.

Education Department officials maintained in recent interviews that
the research leading to these findings was so methodologically flawed
that it justified deleting sections from the forthcoming report.

"Our bottom line is that people have to have confidence in the
methodology,'' said Alan L. Ginsburg, the director of the department's
planning and evaluation service.

The results "were just not at a stage where we could put them out
there and it would be clear what they said,'' said Lauri M. Steel, the
director for education and human development at American Institutes for
Research, a Palo Alto, Calif., firm that contracted with the department
to perform the study and in turn hired Mr. Armor and Ms. Rossell to
work on it.

Motives Questioned

But several researchers who worked on the study insisted in
interviews that these flaws had been addressed and were judged to have
no significant impact on the results.

In addition, Mr. Armor and Ms. Rossell alleged that political
motivations were behind the Education Department's decision to withhold
certain findings.

The sections of the study that are slated for public release, they
noted, generally outline the advantages of magnet schools and describe
them as popular and promising.

"I don't care what administration you are working for, nobody likes
findings that don't support the program they are running,'' Ms. Rossell
said.

Mr. Armor, who provided a copy of the May 28, 1993, final draft of
the study to Education Week, argued that the findings "ought to be out
there in the public domain and [the] dialogue over these issues.''

Congress requested the study in anticipation of the upcoming
reauthorization of the federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program.

The Federal Contribution

Since it was established in 1985, the magnet-schools program has
provided more than $739 million for the implementation and expansion of
magnet programs, awarding 117 districts with desegregation plans
two-year grants ranging from $367,000 to $4 million. It is currently
the only federal program that provides aid to schools specifically for
the purpose of desegregation.

Although the primary purpose of the M.S.A.P. has been desegregation,
grant applicants are also asked to demonstrate how their magnet
programs will improve educational achievement.

The Reagan and Bush administrations, in promoting school choice,
tried to expand the scope of the M.S.A.P. to allow funding of excellent
magnet schools that do not necessarily promote integration. But their
efforts were thwarted by members of Congress who argued the program
already could not meet the existing demand from districts that need
help to desegregate--reaffirming that the program's goal is to further
desegregation. (See Education Week, April 6, 1988, and April 12,
1989.)

While the magnet program remains politically popular, it has been
plagued with questions about whether it is achieving its goals.

In 1990, for example, the Education Department was forced to tinker
with M.S.A.P. rules that were having unintended consequences.

Under the earlier rules, a magnet plan became ineligible for funding
if minority enrollment increased at a school where it already exceeded
50 percent--even if the district average for minority enrollment was
higher and other schools were 100 percent minority. Two schools lost
their grants because of this rule, and districts were forced to change
student-assignment policies. (See Education Week, Dec. 12, 1990.)

Real Desegregation?

Critics also note that some grants have gone to districts with very
high percentages of minority students--and thus little chance of
achieving significant integration.

Almost a quarter of the grants made under the M.S.A.P. have gone to
districts that are at least three-quarters minority, Ms. Rossell said,
and about 4 percent have gone to districts with minority enrollments of
over 90 percent. Although such districts may have been worthy
recipients of additional federal funds, she said, their desegregation
efforts likely amounted to the reshuffling of a few white students.

She also estimated that more than 40 percent of the districts that
have received grants have mandatory student-assignment plans. Thus, she
said, comparable desegregation would have been achieved even if no
magnets were used.

Donald R. Waldrip, the executive director of a professional
association called Magnet Schools of America, last week said he does
not know of any federally funded magnet programs that failed to achieve
at least some desegregation.

Indeed, the rules require districts to demonstrate at least a minor
impact on racial balance to continue receiving funds.

However, Mr. Waldrip also observed that M.S.A.P. administrators, in
awarding grants, appear to give the number of minority children in a
district more weight than the applicant's perceived chances of reducing
racial isolation.

Sylvia L. Wright, the chief of the Education Department's
magnet-schools and desegregation branch, said last week that her office
carefully examines grant applications to insure that the magnet plans
will reduce racial isolation.

No Major Changes Proposed

Thomas W. Payzant, the assistant secretary for elementary and
secondary education, conceded that some grants are awarded to programs
that have the odds stacked against them in trying to achieve
desegregation. But he contended that the department should take such
risks because even programs fighting such odds can succeed if they "are
of high quality and are attractive to parents and students.''

Ms. Rossell contended that Education Department officials are aware
of the problems she has raised but regard addressing them as
"politically unfeasible'' because many M.S.A.P. grants go to large
urban districts represented by powerful members of Congress.

Privately, some Administration officials acknowledge that this is a
factor. The Administration and Congress also are reluctant to
jeopardize aid to districts that are often desperately in need of the
funds.

The House Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational
education was expected this week to begin work on legislation to
reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which includes
the magnet program.

Neither the Administration's reauthorization plan nor a draft
released last month by the House panel addresses the issues raised by
Ms. Rossell and Mr. Armor.

The most significant changes proposed in either version are designed
to address racial isolation within magnet schools and to appease
critics who charge that magnets skim off the best students. The
revisions call for enhanced support for programs that serve broad
student populations, and would allow M.S.A.P. funds to be used to
promote interaction between magnet students and other children.

Congressional aides last week said they have been unable, so far, to
obtain copies of the new study, which Congress had authorized primarily
to examine the impact of the M.S.A.P. on desegregation.

"The Education Department, in general, has been very good about
giving us studies on time. With this particular study, I am not sure
why it is not up here,'' said John F. Jennings, the general counsel for
the House Education and Labor Committee.

A Year of Revisions

The American Institutes for Research study had been heralded as the
first major national survey of magnet schools undertaken in nearly a
decade. The department in 1990 awarded A.I.R. about $750,000 for the
first phase of the research. The controversial report is the final
product of that phase.

A draft began circulating within the department about a year ago,
internal memorandums indicate.

Sources at the the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have
confirmed that, at about that time, department officials gave them a
copy of the report, which their lawyers used in cross-examining Mr.
Armor in his capacity as an expert witness in a Hartford, Conn.,
school-desegregation trial.

Internal Education Department memorandums reveal that several
concerns about the methodology of that draft were voiced by officials
in the division that runs the magnet program, the general counsel's
office, and the office for civil rights. All said the report failed to
adequately show how the M.S.A.P. was affecting desegregation.

A March 2, 1993, memo to A.I.R. from Stephanie Stullich, the
department's project director for the study, said the study could be
revised to address those concerns.

Ms. Steel of A.I.R. expressed a similar view in a memo to her fellow
researchers, maintaining that most suggested changes "can be made
without a whole lot of effort.''

Research Bias Alleged

The final draft of the report provided to Education Week was
submitted to the Education Department in May 1993 and again circulated
internally for review.

Most of the criticism this time focused on the sixth chapter, in
which Mr. Armor and Ms. Rossell used regression analyses to compare
similar desegregation plans with and without magnet schools; they found
no evidence that magnets, in themselves, contribute significantly to
districtwide desegregation.

The department's office for civil rights, where Norma V. Cantu took
over as assistant secretary that month, almost immediately voiced
strong concerns over what Ms. Cantu recently called "serious flaws'' in
the research underpinning that chapter.

"Personally, as a taxpayer, I was disappointed by how incomplete the
analysis was,'' Ms. Cantu said last month in an interview.

Ms. Cantu, a former lawyer for the Mexican-American Legal Defense
and Educational Fund who has squared off against Mr. Armor and Ms.
Rossell when they served as expert witnesses in court, characterized
the two as "opponents of desegregation'' and called their research
superficial and biased.

Both researchers have published studies linking white flight to
mandatory student reassignment--a finding also contained in the magnet
report's sixth chapter--but they describe themselves as supporters of
magnet schools.

Education Department officials last month maintained that the
researchers failed to account for the fact that the districts that
adopt magnet schools tend to be the ones encountering the most
difficulty in desegregating. The researchers, they said, also linked
some long-term enrollment trends to relatively new magnets. An
independent review panel expressed similar concerns but made no
suggestions regarding publication.

Mr. Armor and Ms. Rossell have insisted that they addressed these
concerns and incorporated sufficient caveats into the report.

While department officials have no plans to publish the
controversial analyses, portions of the study providing an overview of
magnet programs are to be released within weeks.

The published findings will show that the number of magnet schools
has doubled, to over 2,600, over the last decade, and that the number
of children being served has tripled, to about 1.4 million.

The department expects within months to release another section
discussing M.S.A.P. grants and their substantial impact on the
desegregation of individual schools.

A.I.R. has received about $450,000 for a second research phase
designed to assess the impact of magnet programs on student
achievement, parent involvement, and school operation, which--as Ms.
Steel noted in a memorandum--was to go forward only after the results
of the first phase were deemed acceptable. The second phase is now
under way, although Mr. Armor and Ms. Rossell no longer are
involved.

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